From active participant in health to (pro)active manager of genetic risk
Subtitle: (re)making the ethical subject of risk in the age of genetics
By: by Jessica Celie Polzer.
Published: 2006
Language: eng
Number of pages: 251
ISBN-13: 9780494159132
Description: It is argued that predictive genetic testing provides women the opportunity to learn about the biological "truth" of their family histories of breast cancer. Furthermore, predictive genetic testing acts as a transformational device through which women (re)constitute themselves as ethical, (pro)active subjects who seek to optimize self-control---that is, control over their health---in light of the ever-present threat of breast cancer. The political and ethical implications of these transformational effects are discussed in light of recent theoretical developments on biological citizenship.This dissertation uses the theoretical perspective of governmentality to critically analyze how knowledge about the genetic determinants of disease is emerging within a neoliberal politics of health risk to constitute women with family histories of breast cancer as particular kinds of self-governing subjects. Using predictive genetic testing for hereditary breast cancer risk as a focal point, twenty-four in-depth interviews were conducted with nine women before genetic counseling, after counseling and after test results were received. The interviews aimed to explore how the women's understandings and experiences of their inherited susceptibility to breast cancer were shaped by the process of predictive genetic testing. The qualitative data were analyzed using standard coding procedures and discourse analytic techniques in order to generate theoretically informed categories and themes that characterized the women's experiences of their inherited susceptibility as they went through the process of predictive genetic testing.The results suggest that the study participants experienced a transformation in subjectivity, from active participants in health to (pro)active managers of genetic risk. As active participants in their health, the women in this study participated in a spectrum of risk management activities prior to their involvement in predictive genetic testing (e.g. breast screening, lifestyle modifications) and in light of their understanding that breast cancer was a disease in their families. As (pro)active managers of genetic risk, the women in this study exercised their will to knowledge about genetic risk in order to reaffirm their vigilance to risk management, channel and fine tune their preventive efforts among an expanded range of risk management, and to secure access to health care resources prior to disease onset.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-07, Section: A, page: 2767.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2006.

Includes bibliographic references.

Electronic version licensed for access by U. of T. users.